


have you tried turning it off and on again?

by tigerpip



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerpip/pseuds/tigerpip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>mission</b>: secret santa<br/><b>objective</b>: gather intel on one stiles stilinski, in order to source the perfect gift</p>
<p>when derek gets stiles' name in the company secret santa, he struggles to place the name to the face. over the next few weeks he frequents the IT department where Stiles works with a series of tech problems to try and find out more about his giftee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	have you tried turning it off and on again?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Onlymystory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onlymystory/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy your gift! originally this idea was inspired by arrow, but I got a bit carried away!  
> I've taken a few liberties with how the company might work so just...go with it? it is also completely unbetaed so all mistakes are my own and I apologise profusely for them. please let me know if there's anything glaringly wrong!
> 
> finally, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and an even better New Year!

‘What kind of name is ‘Stiles’ anyway?’ Derek mused aloud, spinning in his desk chair.

‘The kind you should probably find out?’

Derek jumped slightly, coming to a dizzy stop. He could just make out Lydia’s familiar shape moving towards him through the spinning in his vision.

‘I didn’t think I needed anything at the moment,’ he said, fixing her with a frown.

‘You didn’t. I just sensed you could use my help and here we are, I was right as usual.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Derek grumbled.

‘No?’ Lydia raised an eyebrow, ‘You weren’t just bemoaning your misfortune in getting a Secret Santa you don’t know? Although that isn’t terribly hard, you’d have had to either get me or Peter to avoid that.’

‘Hey, I know…’ Derek racked his brain for a name, ‘…Jackson! He works in the mailroom.’

‘Jackson quit six weeks ago.’

‘Well what about Isaac from administration?’

Lydia sighed, leaning against the edge of Derek’s desk, ‘Isaac’s in accounts. Honestly, I’m wasted on you, you need a personal assistant just to keep track of the employees at this company.’

‘Peter actually has one of those,’ Derek smirked. ‘I need you for much more important jobs, like helping me figure out what to get this…’ he checked the paper again, ‘…Stiles for a gift.’

Shaking her head, Lydia pursed her lips. ‘That is not part of my job description. Come to think of it, I do many things for you that aren’t part of my job description.’

‘Why do you think I keep you around? Come on, you’re the best gift giver I know.’

‘Flattery won’t get you anywhere this time, Derek, this one’s on you.’

‘But I don’t know anything about the guy!’

‘I think that’s the point. You’ve got to find out.’

‘How am I meant to do that?’ Derek frowned, ‘I can’t exactly just go up and ask him.’

Lydia rolled her eyes at her boss, ‘Get creative! I’ll give you a clue, he works in the IT department.’

The phone on Derek’s desk began to ring, and Lydia stood up,

‘And that is my cue to leave. Good luck!’ She gave him a smile that wasn’t at all reassuring, before waltzing out of his office.

 

 ***

 

Stiles balanced his cell phone between his ear and his shoulder as he tried to type with one hand and pick up a piece of sushi with the other. He got the roll halfway to his mouth before his chopsticks clattered back down to the desk and rice splattered everywhere. He sighed loudly before glancing around surreptitiously, picking it up and stuffing it in his mouth.

‘Yes, Dad, I know that Melissa has Scott but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to spend the holidays with you. Here’s an idea, why don’t we all spend them together? Huh? Problem solved.’

Someone cleared their throat behind him and he turned to see Derek Hale standing there.

‘Thank you for calling Hale Solutions, we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.’ He garbled into the phone, hitting the symbol to end the call as fast as he could.

‘Th-that was a client, they, um, they wanted some expert advice so I was…helping them.’ Stiles stammered, ‘What can I do for you Mr Hale?’

‘My uncle’s Mr Hale, you can call me Derek.’ He said with a smile, ‘And actually, that’s what I came down here to ask you about.’

‘Me? Are you sure you didn’t want Liam? He’s very helpful.’

Derek frowned, ‘Who’s Liam?’

‘The new mailroom guy. Jackson quit a couple weeks back. It was pretty funny actually – see he threw this big hissy fit and-‘

‘Stiles?’

‘Yeah?’

Derek fixed his best ‘I want something’ smile on his face,

‘I’m actually looking for some IT help, I’ve been having trouble with my computer.’

‘Oh! Right, of course. You’ve come to the right place then! But you know you could have called, right? You didn’t have to come all the way down here, I mean I’m sure your big fancy office has a phone in it. Actually I’m sure you have an assistant who could have called down here for you, instead of making the trip yourself.’

Derek paused for a moment. This kid sure liked to talk a lot but he did have a point.

‘I’m trying to get to know our employees a bit better, getting an early start on my new year’s resolution.’

He wasn’t sure where that excuse came from but it had sounded a lot better inside his head than it did out loud.

‘Anyway, my computer’s upstairs if you wouldn’t mind taking a look.’

Stiles looked at him,

‘What, now?’

Derek nodded,

‘If you’re not too busy.’

‘Of course!’ Stiles got up from his desk chair, covertly sweeping stray bits of rice onto the floor as he did so.

 

***

 

Once they were both inside the elevator Derek pushed the right button and the doors slid closer.

‘The 25th floor?’ Stiles commented. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been up that far.’

‘There’s a first time for everything.’

The pair arrived at Derek’s office and Stiles sat down in the desk chair, waiting for the computer to boot up. Derek loitered awkwardly beside him until Stiles asked,

‘So what was the problem?’

‘Oh! Yeah, my password isn’t working with my username, I can’t get into the system.’

‘Ah that’s easy, no problem.’

Stiles clicked away at the keys, typing furiously. Meanwhile Derek watched from alongside in awe. This guy was actually rather attractive, in a weird, geeky sort of way. His hair was styled in a particular way that it didn’t look like there’d been any effort put into it when clearly there had, and –

‘Derek?’

Derek snapped out of his reverie and felt colour rise to his cheeks when he realised he’d been staring while Stiles was trying to speak to him.

‘Sorry, what?’

‘I need you to come and set a new password.’ Stiles repeated.

‘Oh, right.’ Derek walked around to the other side of the desk and Stiles rolled back in the chair so he could get in.

‘Make sure it’s something you’ll remember easily but not too easy that someone could crack it.’ Stiles reminded him.

‘Sure.’ Derek typed in the same password he’d had previously and pressed enter. The screen brought up a flashing dialogue box and Stiles stood up,

‘That’s it, done.’

‘Really? Thanks for your help, I’m terrible with technology.’

‘No worries, it was nice to get out of the dungeon down there!’ Stiles joked. He opened the door and walked out, and Derek resumed his position at his desk. He groaned, tipping his head back. He knew who Stiles was now, at least, but he still hadn’t managed to learn anything about him so he was practically back at square one.

 

***

 

A couple of days went by and Derek was no further to finding a gift for Stiles, so he decided he needed to embark on another fact finding mission. Feeling slightly foolish, he opened his fridge and ran his Hale Solutions key card up and down the inside of the door a couple of times. He looked at the back of it and saw no difference, but he didn’t see why there would be, so he gave it one more go for luck and stashed it back in his wallet.

The next day he walked into the building with Lydia, key-card in hand, and sure enough when he tried to get into his office, he was refused entry when his card didn’t work.

He gave his assistant a look, shrugged his shoulders and said,

‘I guess I’ll have to get this fixed…in the IT department.’

Lydia raised an eyebrow,

‘Derek you didn’t!’

He frowned, ‘Didn’t what? My key-card just stopped working!’

He turned to go back towards the elevator, smirking at Lydia on his way out.

 

***

 

‘I don’t know what I did to it,’ Derek lamented, running a hand through his hair. ‘It just doesn’t seem to work at all.’

Stiles smiled at him,

‘Don’t worry, it’s easily fixed. It’s probably just demagnetised itself. Do you keep it in your wallet?’

Derek nodded.

‘Well that might be what’s done it. If it has a magnetic close sometimes they can scramble the cards. I’ll just re-programme it for you.’

Stiles turned to his computer and brought up a dialogue box, typing some code into it before a menu appeared on screen.

‘So are you looking forward to the holidays?’ Stiles asked. Derek jumped at the chance to collect some intel,

‘Yeah I guess. What about you, do you have any plans?’

‘I’m going back home for a few days to spend some time with my family.’

‘Oh really, where’s home for you?’

‘California. Little town called Beacon Hills.’

‘Sounds nice.’ Derek said. ‘Do you have a big family?’

Stiles shook his head,

‘No, it’s just me and my dad. But his partner has a son about my age so I basically have a brother. We were actually best friends before our parents got together, so it’s kind of weird. It’s also weird that our parents got together but we try not to think about that too much. Oh my god, sorry I’ve just been going on and on.’

He swiped Derek’s card through a small machine sitting on his desk and handed it back to him.

‘There you go, that should work perfectly now.’

Derek flashed a smile at him,

‘Thanks again. I promise I’ll try not to break anything else in the near future.’

Lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug, Stiles replied, ‘Anytime. See you around.’

 

***

 

Lydia pushed open the door of Derek’s office and walked in, dropping a pile of envelopes and a few packages on his desk.

‘Your mail.’ she announced, ‘The new mail boy doesn’t seem to have the courage to knock on your door yet so he keeps leaving all this with me.’

‘I would have thought you’d have knocked some sense into him by now, Lyd.’ Derek remarked.

‘Well normally I would have, but he seems to be almost as scared of me as he is of you. He always manages to deliver it while I’m busy elsewhere.’

‘You can be rather terrifying at times. Probably part of what makes you so good at your job.’

‘Well, I guess I can’t argue with that. But compliments _usually_ mean that you want something. What is it this time?’

‘Nothing! Am I not allowed to compliment you from time to time? Does there always have to be a motive behind it?’

Lydia raised an eyebrow and Derek wilted.

‘Well. There was one thing I wanted to ask you about.’

‘And there it is!’ she exclaimed triumphantly.

‘Where did you grow up again?’ Derek asked.

‘Beacon Hills,’ she frowned, ‘why?’

‘I knew it sounded familiar! Why didn’t you tell me you’re from the same place as my Secret Santa?’

Lydia smiled at him,

‘Well that would ruin all the fun, wouldn’t it!’

 

***

 

As Derek wandered down to the IT department for the third time that week, he was beginning to feel a bit stupid. He could see why Stiles called it a dungeon, whenever he was down there he longed for his wall of window bringing in floods of natural light. He squared his shoulders and pushed the door open. As he entered, he immediately heard a voice calling him from across the room,

‘Hey Derek, you’re back again?’

As he got closer, Stiles continued,

‘I’m beginning to think I should call the cops, you might be stalking me.’

Derek could feel his cheeks heat up with embarrassment,

‘I’d hold off for now, I promise I’m not a crazy stalker, just a technologically challenged idiot.’

Stiles smiled,

‘What is it this time?’

Holding up the tablet in his hands, Derek explained,

‘I can’t get this to connect to the Wi-Fi.’

‘Let me take a look.’

He handed it over, and Stiles unlocked it, before laughing out loud.

‘All you need to do is switch the Wi-Fi on, see, the button’s right here.’

He pointed to the corner of the screen and dragged the switch into the ‘on’ position. Immediately the company network popped up and Stiles quickly typed in the password. He handed the tablet back to Derek,

‘There you go, easy as anything.’

‘Sorry to bother you with such a silly problem, you must be sick of the sight of my by now.’

‘Not at all. My pleasure.’

Derek was halfway across the room, berating himself for managing to come up with nothing once again, when he turned back to call out,

‘Thanks again.’

Stiles looked up from his computer,

‘Derek wait,’

He walked over to him and bit his lip before launching into it,

‘Um, I was wondering if maybe you’d like to, maybe sometime go out for dinner? With me, I mean? And it’s totally okay if that’s not something you’d want, and I’ve got it all wrong, in fact it’s probably really inappropriate of me even asking this but you probably don’t want to anyway and –‘

‘Stiles, stop.’ Derek said, ‘Dinner sounds nice.’

‘Really?’ Stiles exclaimed.

‘Yeah. Just ask Lydia to set it up.’

‘Oh, you know about Lydia. Right.’

Derek nodded. ‘I’m going to go upstairs now, but I’ll see you hopefully very soon.’

Stiles nodded as well, watching Derek until he disappeared from sight as the door shut behind him.

 

*** 

 

Upstairs, Derek shut his office door behind him and collapsed into his chair. He pressed the extension for Lydia and mumbled into the receiver,

‘Here. Now. I need to talk to you.’

She appeared a few moments later, a concerned look on her face as she closed the door.

‘What’s wrong?’

Derek raised his eyebrows,

‘I think Stiles just…asked me out?’

‘Really?’

He frowned, ‘Not really the response I was looking for.’

‘Right.’ Lydia said, ‘Okay. What did you say?’

‘I said yes!’ Derek exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t really expecting it.’

‘But you want to go, right. You didn’t just say it for no reason.’

‘Of course I want to go, Lyd, I just think it’ll be a bit awkward. We don’t know much about each other, aside from that I’m really bad with tech. And even that’s not as true as it would seem.’

‘Well then this is the perfect opportunity to do so.’ Lydia reasoned. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’

 

***

 

Derek arrived early to the restaurant, and was surprised to see that Stiles was already waiting outside.

‘Hey, you alright?’ Derek asked as he approached. Stiles jumped slightly, turning to face him.

‘Hi! Sorry, I was going to wait for you inside, but-‘

‘It’s fine.’ Derek smiled. He gestured towards the door, ‘Shall we?’

 

Once they were seated Stiles launched into conversation, and Derek wondered what he had been worried about. The conversation flowed easily between them as they moved between topics, covering topics like music, sports and more personal things like family. Stiles was easy to talk to, and funny too. Derek found himself laughing that night more than he had done in the past few weeks put together. By the time the pair had finished their dessert, Derek was sad to think of things coming to a close.

 

Outside, things got slightly more awkward as the two had to part. Derek began,

‘I had a really nice time tonight.’

‘Me too,’ Stiles nodded. ‘Would you be up for doing it again sometime, maybe with a movie involved?’

‘Definitely. It’s been really nice getting to know you, Lydia should have introduced us a long time ago.’

 

***

 

The next day, Derek walked into work to find Lydia already waiting in his office, perched against his desk. As he entered, she slid off it and stood up straight,

‘So how did it go?’

Derek smiled, the memory of the night before warming him from the inside.

‘Really well, actually.’

Lydia beamed at him, and Derek raised an eyebrow at her,

‘What do you look so happy about?’

‘Nothing. I’m just glad you’re happy.’

‘Are you sure you’re not revelling in the success of your matchmaking skills? Don’t try and deny it.’

‘Well maybe a little. But I mean, who can blame me for being right all the time? Have you finally decided what you’re going to get Stiles for your Secret Santa gift? The Christmas party’s only a few days away.’ asked Lydia.

‘I think so,’ Derek replied. ‘I’m just going to keep it simple.’

‘That’s all I get?’ she protested.

Derek simply nodded, miming zipping his mouth shut and locking it.

 

***

 

The staff party rolled around soon enough, and Derek stood surrounded by anonymous employees. A large circle had gathered around his uncle, everyone wanted to be buddy-buddy with the head of the company. Similarly, Lydia also had a crowd of admirers. She seemed to attract them everywhere she went. Derek was perfectly happy to stand by himself for in the meantime, taking in his surroundings. Well, that was until he felt a tap on his shoulder.

‘Hi.’ Stiles greeted him, ‘Merry Christmas!’

Derek smiled, ‘Almost! Just a few more days in this place. How are you?’

‘Not too bad. Better now that you’re here.’

‘I’ve been meaning to find you, actually.’ Derek said. He pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Stiles.

‘I was your Secret Santa. I should probably be honest now, I’m really not as bad with computers as I appeared to be. I was merely trying to get to know you.’

Stiles laughed, ‘Well I kind of figured something strange might be going on. I was worried for a while!’

He slid his finger underneath the lip of the envelope and pulled it open to reveal a card with cinema tickets inside it.

‘I know it’s not that exciting, but you mentioned that you really wanted to see it and I thought that maybe it might make a good second date?’ Derek rushed out.

‘It’s perfect.’ Stiles replied, his smile widening as he looked up at Derek.

Just at that moment Lydia appeared from behind them, waving a branch above their heads.

‘Mistletoe!’ she exclaimed, pushing the two of them closer together. Derek and Stiles looked at each other for a moment, sharing a look that said ‘we better do what she says’, before leaning in and kissing each other.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, once again hope you enjoyed it! I'm sorry it was so rushed towards the end, this is my first time writing this pairing so forgive me?
> 
> also you might have noticed I based Lydia's character off another certain badass assistant...


End file.
